Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Seven Months of Bodhi Linux in Pictures

Bodhi Linux is still a fairly young project. We gained a good bit of recognition for providing a usable Enlightenment desktop while many others still do not (if they offer one at all). We started back in just November of last year, but the project has matured a good deal in just this short bit of time. The following are screen shots (and some history) from the nine developmental and two stable releases we have had during the last seven months.

There is no doubting the look of our first alpha release was fairly bland (bad? awkward?). White on black on green on purple... What where we thinking?

This first Bodhi release happened on November 17th 2010. It was our latest release for four whole days and saw 539 downloads in that time.

Bodhi 0.1.1 and 0.1.2 - Alphas 2 and 3

Our look didn't change much here. In fact can you spot the only subtle difference between this image and the one above it?

Alpha 2 was our main release for 7 days and during this time it saw 1470 downloads. Alpha 3 had a shorter lifespan of just two days during which time it saw 423 downloads.

Bodhi 0.1.21 - Alpha 3.1

By our third alpha Bodhi had started getting some press. This "hot fix" release was designed to combat the number one issue most people had with our distro - it's look! Our default theme changed to a slightly more consistent looking black on green.

Alpha 3.1 served as our latest release for two weeks and snagged 1590 downloads during this time.

During our fourth alpha release Bodhi's look took a drastic 180. We went from a dark green to natural brown and wood tones. The default icon set also jumped from the default Gnome icons to the much over used Faenza icons.

This wooden Bodhi served as our latest release for twenty five days and saw 2,262 downloads in this time.

Reviewers didn't like our dark green look and they didn't like our wood tone... What are we to do? Give the user a choice obviously! The theme wasn't the only thing we start giving the user a choice about though. Beta 1 was the first time we introduced the profile selection at startup. Each profile was offered with a "light" and "dark" option.

It seems while many people are wary of "alpha" software, "beta" does not scare so many away. Bodhi 0.1.4 received 5,090 downloads during the three weeks it was our main release.

Our release candidate did away with having each profile offered in two different colors. This time around you simply had two screens to click through. The first offered you a choice of profiles and the second a choice of themes. The Luxe theme from the previous two releases stayed around and four other new themes (Beauty, Greyish, Mariad and Sky) appeared on the default disc. The default icon set also changed to the MaXo ReMix.

In twenty two days our first release candidate saw over double the downloads of our first beta. Bodhi 0.1.6 snagged 11,062 downloads while it was our main release.

Initially 0.1.7 was suppose to be our first "stable" release, but some unforeseen development issues lead to it simply being a second release candidate. The most notable changes here are the introduction of the ELFE launcher in the netbook profiles and the replacement of the Beauty theme with Brownish.

Our second release candidate saw 8,599 downloads in just two weeks time.

Our stable release didn't bring any drastic changes with it. In fact from an end user stand point the only major change was the "Desktop" profile layout.

This was the big time though. All "developmental" tags where off of the distro and all bets where off. Our first stable release was our main version for two months, during which time it saw 25,136 downloads.

In between major releases Bodhi will be releasing "update" releases to keep software on the live CD current. The first of these is our current release and it brought with it some minor changes to the tablet interface and four new default themes (Ambient, Boox, Elegant and Moonlight).

This latest release is still racking up downloads as I type this - but it is well into the tens of thousands!

If you would like to see for yourself just how much our Bodhi releases have improved since past releases you can find an archive of all of our old releases on source forge. If you have ideas for further improvement we are always looking for user feedback and I welcome you to leave a comment below or sign up on our forums.

For an e17 release I found Bodhi to be lack-luster. The lack of the special effects modules like fire, rain, peguins, etc. makes it "just another release." May as well be XFCE or, for that matter Gnome. Sorry, guys, but I'm not impressed and I even have it installed on my HD!

Great job Jeff and all the Bodhi team! I've always been a distro hopper switching distros every few weeks, but I've stuck with Bodhi since the first Beta came out. Really nice distro for anybody that is interested in trying out an E17 desktop. Thanks again Jeff.

I have not tried bodhi yet but i'm more interested in speed and no clutter, as well as, ability to replace my ubuntu in terms of connectivity in a windows environment(drag an drop ontop of folders, accessing file shares, printing to network printers etc., can bodhi do all these seemlesly).

I must say thank you for your dedication that birthed bodhi. you are awesome. all the good comments must not be from stupid people. Before i try it, one or two more questions :

1.) is bodhi a rolling release or do i have to reinstall for every new release?

Bodhi is on a two year release cycle. We currently plan to move from one Ubuntu LTS to the next and we backport newer versions of all popular (and requested) software in the mean time so users stay up to date.

Bodhi ARM packages will work on anything Debian ARM can be installed on. We will be working on fine tuning that process some in the coming year.

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My name is Jeff Hoogland and you've landed on one of my Google pages. I currently work as adjunct faculty teaching mathematics at ITT Technical Institute in Springfield IL. I am a free software advocate and part time code jockey. You can learn more about me from my personal website.

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